The Capitoline Wolf (Italian: Lupa Capitolina) is a bronze sculpture depicting a scene from the legend of the founding of Rome. The sculpture shows a she-wolf suckling the mythical twin founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus. According to the legend, when Numitor, grandfather of the twins, was overthrown by his brother Amulius, the usurper ordered them to be cast into the Tiber River. They were rescued by a she-wolf who cared for them until a herdsman, Faustulus, found and raised them.

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The sculpture is somewhat larger than life-size, standing 75 centimetres (30 in) high and 114 centimetres (45 in) long. The wolf is depicted in a tense, watchful pose, with alert ears and glaring eyes which are watching for danger. By contrast, the human twins – executed in a completely different style – are oblivious to their surroundings, absorbed by their suckling.[4]

The she-wolf from the legend of Romulus and Remus was regarded as a symbol of Rome from ancient times. Several ancient sources refer to statues depicting the wolf suckling the twins. Livy reports in his Roman history that a statue was erected at the foot of the Palatine Hill in 295 B.C.[5]Pliny the Elder mentions the presence in the Roman Forum of a statue of a she-wolf that was "a miracle proclaimed in bronze nearby, as though she had crossed the Comitium while Attus Navius was taking the omens". Cicero also mentions a statue of the she-wolf as one of a number of sacred objects on the Capitoline that had been inauspiciously struck by lightning in the year 65 BC: "it was a gilt statue on the Capitol of a baby being given suck from the udders of a wolf."[6] Cicero also mentions the wolf in De Divinatione 1.20 and 2.47.[7]

It was widely assumed that the Capitoline Wolf was the very sculpture described by Cicero, due to the presence of damage to the sculpture's paw, which was believed to correspond to the lightning strike of 65 BC. The 18th-century German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann attributed the statue to an Etruscan maker in the 5th century BC, based on how the wolf's fur was depicted.[8] It was first attributed to the Veiian artist Vulca, who decorated the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, and then re-attributed to an unknown Etruscan artist of approximately 480–470 BC. Winckelmann correctly identified a Renaissance origin for the twins; they were probably added in 1471 or later.[9]

During the 19th century, a number of researchers questioned Winckelmann's dating of the bronze. August Emil Braun, the secretary of the Archaeological Institute of Rome, proposed in 1854 that the damage to the wolf's paw had been caused by an error during casting. Wilhelm Fröhner, the Conservator of the Louvre, stated in 1878 that style of the statue was attributable to the Carolingian art period rather than the Etruscan, and in 1885 Wilhelm von Bode also stated that he was of the view that the statue was most likely a mediaeval work. However, these views were largely disregarded and had been forgotten by the 20th century.[9]

In 2006, the Italian art historian Anna Maria Carruba and the Etruscologist Adriano La Regina contested the traditional dating of the wolf on the basis of an analysis of the casting technique. Carruba had been given the task of restoring the sculpture in 1997, enabling her to examine how it had been made. She observed that the statue had been cast in a single piece, using a variation of the lost-wax casting technique. This technique was not used in Classical antiquity; ancient Greek and Roman bronzes were typically constructed from multiple pieces, a method that facilitated high-quality castings, with less risk than would be involved in casting the entire sculpture at once. Single-piece casting was, however, widely used in the Middle Ages to mould bronze items that needed a high level of rigidity, such as bells and cannons. Carruba argues, like Braun, that the damage to the wolf's paw had resulted from an error in the moulding process. In addition, La Regina, who is the state superintendent of Rome's cultural heritage, argues that the sculpture's artistic style is more akin to Carolingian and Romanesque art than that of the ancient world.[9]

Radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dating was carried out at the University of Salento in February 2007 to resolve the question. The results revealed with an accuracy of 95.4 percent that the sculpture was crafted between the 11th and 12th century AD.

It is unclear when the sculpture was first erected, but there are a number of mediaeval references to a "wolf" standing in the Pope's Lateran Palace. In the 10th century Chronicon of Benedict of Soracte, the monk chronicler writes of the institution of a supreme court of justice "in the Lateran Palace, in the place called the Wolf, viz, the mother of the Romans." Trials and executions "at the Wolf" are recorded from time to time until 1438.[10]

The 12th-century English cleric Magister Gregorius wrote a descriptive essay De Mirabilibus Urbis Romae[11] and recorded in an appendix three pieces of sculpture he had neglected: one was the Wolf in the portico, at the principal entrance to the Lateran Palace. He mentions no twins, for he noted that she was set up as if stalking a bronze ram that was nearby, which served as a fountain. The wolf had also served as a fountain, Magister Gregorius thought, but it had been broken off at the feet and moved to where he saw it.[12]

The present-day Capitoline Wolf could not have been the sculpture seen by Benedict and Gregorius, if its newly attributed age is accepted, though it is conceivable that it could have been a replacement for an earlier (now lost) depiction of the Roman wolf. In December 1471 Pope Sixtus IV ordered the present sculpture to be transferred to the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Capitoline Hill, and the twins were added some time around then. The Capitoline Wolf joined a number of other genuinely ancient sculptures transferred at the same time, to form the nucleus of the Capitoline Museum.

Capitoline Wolf at Siena Duomo. According to a legend Siena was founded by Senius and Aschius, two sons of Remus. When they fled Rome, they took the statue of the She-wolf to Siena, which became the symbol of the town.

The programme of conservation undertaken in the 1990s resulted in an exhibition devoted to the Lupa Capitolina and her iconography.[16]

In the 2009 film Agora, set in 5th-century Alexandria, the Capitoline Wolf—complete with the del Pollaiolo twins—can be seen in the prefect's palace. This is visible in the scene before Hypatia's capture, directly behind her character.
In Rick Riordan's The Son of Neptune, Lupa is the wolf that trains all demigods who wish to enter Camp Jupiter. She trains Percy Jackson and is mentioned that she trained Jason Grace also.

In the first episode of the American television programme The Addams Family, a mirror-image sculpture of the Capitoline Wolf is on display in the Addams's living room. It can be seen standing atop a table, just to the right of the main staircase.

The Boston Latin School uses an image on the cover of their agenda book as well as being the official school emblem.

The Capitoline Wolf is used in Romania and Moldova as a symbol of the Latin origin of its inhabitants and in some major cities there are replicas of the original statue given as a gift from Italy at the beginning of the 20th century.

1.
Bronze
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These additions produce a range of alloys that may be harder than copper alone, or have other useful properties, such as stiffness, ductility, or machinability. The archeological period where bronze was the hardest metal in use is known as the Bronze Age. In the ancient Near East this began with the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BC, with India and China starting to use bronze around the same time, everywhere it gradually spread across regions. The Bronze Age was followed by the Iron Age starting from about 1300 BC and reaching most of Eurasia by about 500 BC, the discovery of bronze enabled people to create metal objects which were harder and more durable than previously possible. Bronze tools, weapons, armor, and building such as decorative tiles were harder and more durable than their stone. It was only later that tin was used, becoming the major ingredient of bronze in the late 3rd millennium BC. Tin bronze was superior to arsenic bronze in that the process could be more easily controlled. Also, unlike arsenic, metallic tin and fumes from tin refining are not toxic, the earliest tin-alloy bronze dates to 4500 BCE in a Vinča culture site in Pločnik. Other early examples date to the late 4th millennium BC in Africa, Susa and some ancient sites in China, Luristan, ores of copper and the far rarer tin are not often found together, so serious bronze work has always involved trade. Tin sources and trade in ancient times had a influence on the development of cultures. In Europe, a source of tin was the British deposits of ore in Cornwall. In many parts of the world, large hoards of bronze artefacts are found, suggesting that bronze also represented a store of value, in Europe, large hoards of bronze tools, typically socketed axes, are found, which mostly show no signs of wear. With Chinese ritual bronzes, which are documented in the inscriptions they carry and from other sources and these were made in enormous quantities for elite burials, and also used by the living for ritual offerings. Pure iron is soft, and the process of beating and folding sponge iron to wrought iron removes from the metal carbon. Careful control of the alloying and tempering eventually allowed for wrought iron with properties comparable to modern steel, Bronze was still used during the Iron Age, and has continued in use for many purposes to the modern day. Among other advantages, it does not rust, the weaker wrought iron was found to be sufficiently strong for many uses. Archaeologists suspect that a disruption of the tin trade precipitated the transition. The population migrations around 1200–1100 BC reduced the shipping of tin around the Mediterranean, limiting supplies, there are many different bronze alloys, but typically modern bronze is 88% copper and 12% tin

2.
Capitoline Museums
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The Capitoline Museums are a single museum containing a group of art and archeological museums in Piazza del Campidoglio, on top of the Capitoline Hill in Rome, Italy. The history of the museums can be traced to 1471, when Pope Sixtus IV donated a collection of important ancient bronzes to the people of Rome, the museums are owned and operated by the municipality of Rome. The statue of a rider in the centre of the piazza is of Emperor Marcus Aurelius. It is a copy, the original being housed on-site in the Capitoline museum. Open to the public in 1734 under Clement XII, the Capitoline Museums are considered the first museum in the world, understood as a place where art could be enjoyed by all and this section contains collections sorted by building, and brief information on the buildings themselves. For the history of their design and construction, see Capitoline Hill#Michelangelo, the Capitoline Museums are composed of three main buildings surrounding the Piazza del Campidoglio and interlinked by an underground gallery beneath the piazza. In addition, the 16th century Palazzo Caffarelli-Clementino, located off the adjacent to the Palazzo dei Conservatori, was added to the museum complex in the early 20th century. The collections here are ancient sculpture, mostly Roman but also Greek, the Conservators Apartment is distinguished by elaborate interior decorations, including frescoes, stuccos, tapestries, and carved ceilings and doors. The third floor of the Palazzo dei Conservatori houses the Capitoline Art Gallery, housing the museums painting, the Capitoline Coin Cabinet, containing collections of coins, medals, jewels, and jewelry, is located in the attached Palazzo Caffarelli-Clementino. Statues, inscriptions, sarcophagi, busts, mosaics, and other ancient Roman artifacts occupy two floors of the Palazzo Nuovo, in the Hall of the Galatian can also be appreciated the marble statue of the Dying Gaul also called “Capitoline Gaul” and the statue of Cupid and Psyche. The gallery was constructed in the 1930s and it contains in situ 2nd century ruins of ancient Roman dwellings, and also houses the Galleria Lapidaria, which displays the Museums collection of epigraphs. The new great glass covered hall — the Sala Marco Aurelio — created by covering the Giardino Romano is similar to the one used for the Sala Ottagonale, the design is by the architect Carlo Aymonino. Its volume recalls that of the oval space designed by Michelangelo for the piazza and its centerpiece is the bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, which was once in the centre of Piazza del Campidoglio and has been kept indoors ever since its modern restoration. Moving these statues out of the palazzo allows those sculptures temporarily moved to the Centrale Montemartini to be brought back. The Centrale Montemartini is a power station of Acea in southern Rome. Its permanent collection comprises 400 ancient statues, moved here during the reorganisation of the Capitoline Museums in 1997, along with tombs, busts, many of them were excavated in the ancient Roman horti between the 1890s and 1930s, a fruitful period for Roman archaeology. They are displayed there along the lines of Tate Modern, except that the machinery has not been moved out, Capitoline Brutus Capitoline Museums official website

3.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world

4.
Romulus and Remus
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In Roman mythology, Romulus and Remus are twin brothers, whose story tells the events that led to the founding of the city of Rome and the Roman Kingdom by Romulus. The killing of Remus by his brother, and other tales from their story, have inspired artists throughout the ages, since ancient times, the image of the twins being suckled by a she-wolf has been a symbol of the city of Rome and the Roman people. Although the tale takes place before the founding of Rome around 750 BC, whether the twins myth was an original part of Roman myth or a later development is a subject of ongoing debate. Romulus and Remus were born in Alba Longa, one of the ancient Latin cities near the site of Rome. Their mother, Rhea Silvia was a virgin and the daughter of the former king, Numitor. In some sources, Rhea Silvia conceived them when their father, through their mother, the twins were descended from Greek and Latin nobility. Seeing them as a threat to his rule, King Amulius ordered them to be killed. They were saved by the god Tiberinus, Father of the River and survived with the care of others, in the most well-known episode, the twins were suckled by a she-wolf, in a cave now known as the Lupercal. Eventually, they were adopted by Faustulus, a shepherd and they grew up tending flocks, unaware of their true identities. Over time, their leadership abilities attracted a company of supporters from the community. When they were adults, they became involved in a dispute between supporters of Numitor and Amulius. As a result, Remus was taken prisoner and brought to Alba Longa, both his grandfather and the king suspected his true identity. Romulus, meanwhile, had organized an effort to free his brother, during this time they learned of their past and joined forces with their grandfather to restore him to the throne. Amulius was killed and Numitor was reinstated as king of Alba, the twins set out to build a city of their own. After arriving back in the area of the seven hills, they disagreed about the hill upon which to build, Romulus preferred the Palatine Hill, above the Lupercal, Remus preferred the Aventine Hill. When they could not resolve the dispute, they agreed to seek the gods approval through a contest of augury, Remus first saw 6 auspicious birds but soon afterward, Romulus saw 12, and claimed to have won divine approval. The new dispute furthered the contention between them, in the aftermath, Remus was killed either by Romulus or by one of his supporters. Romulus then went on to found the city of Rome, its institutions, government, military and he reigned for many years as its first king

5.
Tiber
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It drains a basin estimated at 17,375 square kilometres. The river has achieved lasting fame as the watercourse of the city of Rome. The river rises at Mount Fumaiolo in central Italy and flows in a southerly direction past Perugia. However, it does not form a delta, owing to a strong north-flowing sea current close to the shore, to the steep shelving of the coast. The source of the Tiber consists of two springs 10 metres away from each other on Mount Fumaiolo and these springs are called Le Vene. The springs are in a beech forest 1,268 metres above sea level, during the 1930s, Benito Mussolini placed an antique marble Roman column at the point where the river arises, inscribed QUI NASCE IL FIUME SACRO AI DESTINI DI ROMA. There is an eagle on the top of this column, the first miles of the Tiber run through Valtiberina before entering Umbria. It is probable that the genesis of the name Tiber was pre-Latin, like the Roman name of Tibur, the same root is found in the Latin praenomen Tiberius. There are also Etruscan variants of this praenomen in Thefarie and Teperie, the legendary king Tiberinus, ninth in the king-list of Alba Longa, was said to have drowned in the river Albula, which was afterward called Tiberis. Yet another etymology is from *dubri-, water, considered by Alessio as Sicel and this root *dubri- is widespread in Western Europe e. g. Dover, Portus Dubris. According to the legend, Jupiter made him a god and guardian spirit of the river and this gave rise to the standard Roman depiction of the river as a powerfully built reclining god, also named Tiberinus, with streams of water flowing from his hair and beard. The Tiber was also believed to be the river into which Romulus and Remus were thrown as infants, according to legend, the city of Rome was founded in 753 BC on the banks of the Tiber about 25 kilometres from the sea at Ostia. The island Isola Tiberina in the centre of Rome, between Trastevere and the ancient center, was the site of an important ancient ford and was later bridged. Legend says Romes founders, the twin brothers Romulus and Remus, were abandoned on its waters, the river marked the boundary between the lands of the Etruscans to the west, the Sabines to the east and the Latins to the south. Benito Mussolini, born in Romagna, adjusted the boundary between Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna, so that the springs of the Tiber would lie in Romagna and it was later used to ship stone, timber and foodstuffs to Rome. During the Punic Wars of the 3rd century BC, the harbour at Ostia became a key naval base and it later became Romes most important port, where wheat, olive oil, and wine were imported from Romes colonies around the Mediterranean. Wharves were also built along the riverside in Rome itself, lining the riverbanks around the Campus Martius area, the Romans connected the river with a sewer system and with an underground network of tunnels and other channels, to bring its water into the middle of the city. Wealthy Romans had garden-parks or horti on the banks of the river in Rome up through the first century BC and these may have been sold and developed about a century later

6.
Etruscan civilization
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The Etruscan civilization is the modern name given to a powerful and wealthy civilization of ancient Italy in the area corresponding roughly to Tuscany, western Umbria, and northern Lazio. Culture that is identifiably Etruscan developed in Italy after about 800 BC, the latter gave way in the 7th century BC to a culture that was influenced by ancient Greece, Magna Graecia, and Phoenicia. The decline was gradual, but by 500 BC the political destiny of Italy had passed out of Etruscan hands, the last Etruscan cities were formally absorbed by Rome around 100 BC. Politics were based on the city, and probably the family unit. In their heyday, the Etruscan elite grew very rich through trade with the Celtic world to the north and the Greeks to the south, archaic Greece had a huge influence on their art and architecture, and Greek mythology was evidently very familiar to them. The study also excluded recent Anatolian connection, the ancient Romans referred to the Etruscans as the Tuscī or Etruscī. Their Roman name is the origin of the terms Tuscany, which refers to their heartland, and Etruria, which can refer to their wider region. In Attic Greek, the Etruscans were known as Tyrrhenians, from which the Romans derived the names Tyrrhēnī, Tyrrhēnia, the word may also be related to the Hittite Taruisa. The Etruscans called themselves Rasenna, which was syncopated to Rasna or Raśna, the origins of the Etruscans are mostly lost in prehistory, although Greek historians as early as the 5th century BC, repeatedly associated the Tyrrhenians with Pelasgians. Strabo as well as the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus make mention of the Tyrrhenians as pirates, pliny the Elder put the Etruscans in the context of the Rhaetian people to the north and wrote in his Natural History, Adjoining these the Noricans are the Raeti and Vindelici. All are divided into a number of states, the Raeti are believed to be people of Tuscan race driven out by the Gauls, their leader was named Raetus. Historians have no literature and no original Etruscan texts of religion or philosophy, therefore, much of what is known about this civilization is derived from grave goods, another source of genetic data on Etruscan origins is from four ancient breeds of cattle. Analyzing the mitochondrial DNA of these and seven other breeds of Italian cattle, the other Italian breeds were linked to northern Europe. Etruscan expansion was focused both to the north beyond the Apennine Mountains and into Campania, some small towns in the sixth century BC disappeared during this time, ostensibly consumed by greater, more powerful neighbours. However, it is certain that the structure of the Etruscan culture was similar to, albeit more aristocratic than. The mining and commerce of metal, especially copper and iron, led to an enrichment of the Etruscans and to the expansion of their influence in the Italian peninsula and the western Mediterranean Sea. Here, their interests collided with those of the Greeks, especially in the sixth century BC and this led the Etruscans to ally themselves with Carthage, whose interests also collided with the Greeks. Around 540 BC, the Battle of Alalia led to a new distribution of power in the western Mediterranean, from the first half of the 5th century BC, the new political situation meant the beginning of the Etruscan decline after losing their southern provinces

7.
Antonio del Pollaiolo
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Antonio del Pollaiuolo, also known as Antonio di Jacopo Pollaiuolo or Antonio Pollaiuolo, was an Italian painter, sculptor, engraver and goldsmith during the Italian Renaissance. His brother, Piero, was also an artist, and the two worked together. Their work shows both influences and an interest in human anatomy, reportedly, the brothers carried out dissections to improve their knowledge of the subject. They took their nickname from the trade of their father, who in fact sold poultry, antonios first studies of goldsmithing and metalworking were under either his father or Andrea del Castagno, the latter probably taught him also in painting. Other sources relate that he worked in the Florence workshop of Bartoluccio di Michele, during this time, he also took an interest in engraving. Some of Pollaiuolos painting exhibits strong brutality, of which the characteristics can be studied in the his portrayal of Saint Sebastian, painted in 1473-1475 for the Pucci Chapel of the SS. However, in contrast, his female portraits exhibit a calmness and he achieved his greatest successes as a sculptor and metal-worker. The exact ascription of his works is doubtful, as his brother Piero did much in collaboration with him, the fifteenth-century addition of the infant twins Romulus and Remus to an existing bronze sculpture of the Ancient Roman mythological she-wolf who nursed them has been attributed by some to him. In 1496 he went to Florence in order to put the finishing touches to the work begun in the sacristy of Santo Spirito. His main contribution to Florentine painting lay in his analysis of the body in movement or under conditions of strain. Giorgio Vasari includes a biography of Pollaiuolo in his Lives of the Artists

8.
Radiocarbon dating
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Radiocarbon dating is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was developed by Willard Libby in the late 1940s, Libby received the Nobel Prize for his work in 1960. The radiocarbon dating method is based on the fact that radiocarbon is constantly being created in the atmosphere by the interaction of cosmic rays with atmospheric nitrogen. The resulting radiocarbon combines with oxygen to form radioactive carbon dioxide. When the animal or plant dies, it stops exchanging carbon with its environment, and from that point onwards the amount of 14C it contains begins to decrease as the 14C undergoes radioactive decay. Measuring the amount of 14C in a sample from a plant or animal such as a piece of wood or a fragment of bone provides information that can be used to calculate when the animal or plant died. The idea behind radiocarbon dating is straightforward, but years of work were required to develop the technique to the point where accurate dates could be obtained. Research has been ongoing since the 1960s to determine what the proportion of 14C in the atmosphere has been over the past fifty thousand years. The resulting data, in the form of a curve, is now used to convert a given measurement of radiocarbon in a sample into an estimate of the samples calendar age. Other corrections must be made to account for the proportion of 14C in different types of organisms, additional complications come from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, and from the above-ground nuclear tests done in the 1950s and 1960s. Conversely, nuclear testing increased the amount of 14C in the atmosphere, measurement of radiocarbon was originally done by beta-counting devices, which counted the amount of beta radiation emitted by decaying 14C atoms in a sample. The development of dating has had a profound impact on archaeology. In addition to permitting more accurate dating within archaeological sites than previous methods, histories of archaeology often refer to its impact as the radiocarbon revolution. Radiocarbon dating has allowed key transitions in prehistory to be dated, such as the end of the last ice age, and they synthesized 14C using the laboratorys cyclotron accelerator and soon discovered that the atoms half-life was far longer than had been previously thought. This was followed by a prediction by Serge A. Korff, then employed at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia and it had previously been thought that 14C would be more likely to be created by deuterons interacting with 13C. At some time during World War II, Willard Libby, who was then at Berkeley, learned of Korffs research, in 1945, Libby moved to the University of Chicago where he began his work on radiocarbon dating. He published a paper in 1946 in which he proposed that the carbon in living matter might include 14C as well as non-radioactive carbon, by contrast, methane created from petroleum showed no radiocarbon activity because of its age. The results were summarized in a paper in Science in 1947, Libby and James Arnold proceeded to test the radiocarbon dating theory by analyzing samples with known ages

9.
Roman Forum
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The Roman Forum is a rectangular forum surrounded by the ruins of several important ancient government buildings at the center of the city of Rome. Citizens of the ancient city referred to this space, originally a marketplace, as the Forum Magnum, here statues and monuments commemorated the citys great men. The teeming heart of ancient Rome, it has called the most celebrated meeting place in the world. Many of the oldest and most important structures of the ancient city were located on or near the Forum, the Roman kingdoms earliest shrines and temples were located on the southeastern edge. Other archaic shrines to the northwest, such as the Umbilicus Urbis and this is where the Senate—as well as Republican government itself—began. The Senate House, government offices, tribunals, temples, memorials, over time the archaic Comitium was replaced by the larger adjacent Forum and the focus of judicial activity moved to the new Basilica Aemilia. Some 130 years later, Julius Caesar built the Basilica Julia, along with the new Curia Julia, eventually much economic and judicial business would transfer away from the Forum Romanum to the larger and more extravagant structures to the north. The reign of Constantine the Great saw the construction of the last major expansion of the Forum complex—the Basilica of Maxentius and this returned the political center to the Forum until the fall of the Western Roman Empire almost two centuries later. This is the case despite attempts, with success, to impose some order there, by Sulla, Julius Caesar, Augustus. By the Imperial period, the public buildings that crowded around the central square had reduced the open area to a rectangle of about 130 by 50 metres. Its long dimension was oriented northwest to southeast and extended from the foot of the Capitoline Hill to that of the Velian Hill, the Forums basilicas during the Imperial period—the Basilica Aemilia on the north and the Basilica Julia on the south—defined its long sides and its final form. The Forum proper included this square, the buildings facing it and, sometimes, originally, the site of the Forum had been a marshy lake where waters from the surrounding hills drained. This was drained by the Tarquins with the Cloaca Maxima, because of its location, sediments from both the flooding of the Tiber and the erosion of the surrounding hills have been raising the level of the Forum floor for centuries. Excavated sequences of remains of paving show that sediment eroded from the hills was already raising the level in early Republican times. As the ground around buildings rose, residents simply paved over the debris that was too much to remove and its final travertine paving, still visible, dates from the reign of Augustus. Excavations in the 19th century revealed one layer on top of another, the deepest level excavated was 3.60 metres above sea level. Archaeological finds show human activity at that level with the discovery of carbonised wood, an important function of the Forum, during both Republican and Imperial times, was to serve as the culminating venue for the celebratory military processions known as Triumphs. Victorious generals entered the city by the western Triumphal Gate and circumnavigated the Palatine Hill before proceeding from the Velian Hill down the Via Sacra, from here they would mount the Capitoline Rise up to the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the summit of the Capitol

10.
Cicero
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Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman philosopher, politician, lawyer, orator, political theorist, consul, and constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy family of the Roman equestrian order. According to Michael Grant, the influence of Cicero upon the history of European literature, Cicero introduced the Romans to the chief schools of Greek philosophy and created a Latin philosophical vocabulary distinguishing himself as a translator and philosopher. Though he was an orator and successful lawyer, Cicero believed his political career was his most important achievement. During the chaotic latter half of the 1st century BC marked by civil wars, following Julius Caesars death, Cicero became an enemy of Mark Antony in the ensuing power struggle, attacking him in a series of speeches. His severed hands and head were then, as a revenge of Mark Antony. Petrarchs rediscovery of Ciceros letters is often credited for initiating the 14th-century Renaissance in public affairs, humanism, according to Polish historian Tadeusz Zieliński, the Renaissance was above all things a revival of Cicero, and only after him and through him of the rest of Classical antiquity. Cicero was born in 106 BC in Arpinum, a hill town 100 kilometers southeast of Rome and his father was a well-to-do member of the equestrian order and possessed good connections in Rome. However, being a semi-invalid, he could not enter public life, although little is known about Ciceros mother, Helvia, it was common for the wives of important Roman citizens to be responsible for the management of the household. Ciceros brother Quintus wrote in a letter that she was a thrifty housewife, Ciceros cognomen, or personal surname, comes from the Latin for chickpea, cicer. Plutarch explains that the name was given to one of Ciceros ancestors who had a cleft in the tip of his nose resembling a chickpea. However, it is likely that Ciceros ancestors prospered through the cultivation. Romans often chose down-to-earth personal surnames, the family names of Fabius, Lentulus, and Piso come from the Latin names of beans, lentils. Plutarch writes that Cicero was urged to change this name when he entered politics. During this period in Roman history, cultured meant being able to speak both Latin and Greek, Cicero used his knowledge of Greek to translate many of the theoretical concepts of Greek philosophy into Latin, thus translating Greek philosophical works for a larger audience. It was precisely his broad education that tied him to the traditional Roman elite, according to Plutarch, Cicero was an extremely talented student, whose learning attracted attention from all over Rome, affording him the opportunity to study Roman law under Quintus Mucius Scaevola. Ciceros fellow students were Gaius Marius Minor, Servius Sulpicius Rufus, the latter two became Ciceros friends for life, and Pomponius would become, in Ciceros own words, as a second brother, with both maintaining a lifelong correspondence. Cicero wanted to pursue a career in politics along the steps of the Cursus honorum

11.
Lightning
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Lightning is a sudden electrostatic discharge that occurs during a thunder storm. This discharge occurs between electrically charged regions of a cloud, between two clouds, or between a cloud and the ground. The charged regions in the atmosphere temporarily equalize themselves through this discharge referred to as an if it hits an object on the ground. Lightning causes light in the form of plasma, and sound in the form of thunder, Lightning may be seen and not heard when it occurs at a distance too great for the sound to carry as far as the light from the strike or flash. This article incorporates public domain material from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration document Understanding Lightning, the details of the charging process are still being studied by scientists, but there is general agreement on some of the basic concepts of thunderstorm electrification. The main charging area in a thunderstorm occurs in the part of the storm where air is moving upward rapidly and temperatures range from -15 to -25 Celsius. At that place, the combination of temperature and rapid upward air movement produces a mixture of super-cooled cloud droplets, small ice crystals, the updraft carries the super-cooled cloud droplets and very small ice crystals upward. At the same time, the graupel, which is larger and denser. The differences in the movement of the precipitation cause collisions to occur, when the rising ice crystals collide with graupel, the ice crystals become positively charged and the graupel becomes negatively charged. The updraft carries the positively charged ice crystals upward toward the top of the storm cloud, the larger and denser graupel is either suspended in the middle of the thunderstorm cloud or falls toward the lower part of the storm. The result is that the part of the thunderstorm cloud becomes positively charged while the middle to lower part of the thunderstorm cloud becomes negatively charged. This part of the cloud is called the anvil. While this is the charging process for the thunderstorm cloud. In addition, there is a small but important positive charge buildup near the bottom of the cloud due to the precipitation. Many factors affect the frequency, distribution, strength and physical properties of a lightning flash in a particular region of the world. These factors include ground elevation, latitude, prevailing wind currents, relative humidity, proximity to warm and cold bodies of water, to a certain degree, the ratio between IC, CC and CG lightning may also vary by season in middle latitudes. Lightnings relative unpredictability limits a complete explanation of how or why it occurs, the actual discharge is the final stage of a very complex process. At its peak, a thunderstorm produces three or more strikes to the Earth per minute

12.
Johann Joachim Winckelmann
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Johann Joachim Winckelmann was a German art historian and archaeologist. He was a pioneering Hellenist who first articulated the difference between Greek, Greco-Roman and Roman art, many consider him the father of the discipline of art history. His would be the influence on the rise of the neoclassical movement during the late 18th century. His writings influenced not only a new science of archaeology and art history but Western painting, sculpture, literature, Winckelmanns History of Ancient Art was one of the first books written in German to become a classic of European literature. His subsequent influence on Lessing, Herder, Goethe, Hölderlin, Heine, Nietzsche, George, today, Humboldt University of Berlins Winckelmann Institute is dedicated to the study of classical archaeology. Winckelmann was homosexual, and open homoeroticism informed his writings on aesthetics and this was recognized by his contemporaries, such as Goethe. Winckelmann was born in poverty in Stendal in the Margraviate of Brandenburg and his father, Martin Winckelmann, worked as a cobbler, while his mother, Anna Maria Meyer, was the daughter of a weaver. Winckelmanns early years were full of hardship, but his academic interests pushed him forward, later in Rome, when he had become a famous scholar, he wrote, One gets spoiled here, but God owed me this, in my youth I suffered too much. Winckelmann attended the Köllnisches Gymnasium in Berlin and the Altstädtisches Gymnasium at Salzwedel and he nonetheless devoted himself privately to Greek art and literature and followed the lectures of Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, who coined the term aesthetics. With the intention of becoming a physician, in 1740 Winckelmann attended medical classes at Jena, from 1743 to 1748, he was the deputy headmaster of the gymnasium of Seehausen in the Altmark but Winckelmann felt that work with children was not his true calling. Moreover, his means were insufficient, his salary was so low that he had to rely on his students parents for free meals and he was thus obliged to accept a tutorship near Magdeburg. While tutor for the powerful Lamprecht family, he fell into unrequited love with the handsome Lamprecht son and this was one of a series of such loves throughout his life. His enthusiasm for the male form excited Winckelmanns budding admiration of ancient Greek, in 1748, Winckelmann wrote to Count Heinrich von Bünau. Little value is set on Greek literature, to which I have devoted myself so far as I could penetrate, in the same year, Winckelmann was appointed secretary of von Bünaus library at Nöthnitz, near Dresden. The library contained some 40,000 volumes, Winckelmann had read Homer, Herodotus, Sophocles, Xenophon, and Plato, but he found at Nöthnitz the works of such famous Enlightenment writers as Voltaire and Montesquieu. To leave behind the spartan atmosphere of Prussia came as a relief for him. Winckelmanns major duty involved assisting von Bünau in writing a book on the Holy Roman Empire, during this period he made several visits to the collection of antiquities at Dresden, but his description of its best paintings remained unfinished. The work won warm admiration not only for the ideas it contained and it made Winckelmann famous, and was reprinted several times and soon translated into French

In Roman mythology, Romulus and Remus are twin brothers, whose story tells the events that led to the founding of the …

Image: She wolf suckles Romulus and Remus

Altar to Mars (divine father of Romulus and Remus) and Venus (their divine ancestress) depicting elements of their legend. Tiberinus, the Father of the Tiber and the infant twins being suckled by a she-wolf in the Lupercal are below. A vulture from the contest of augury and Palatine hill are to the left. (From Ostia, now at the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme).

The Shepherd Faustulus Bringing Romulus and Remus to His Wife, Nicolas Mignard (1654)

Lost-wax casting (also called "investment casting", "precision casting", or cire perdue in French) is the process by …

A model of an apple in wax

From the model a rubber mould is made. (The mould is shown here with a solid cast in plaster)

From this rubber mould a hollow wax or paraffin cast is made

The hollow paraffin apple is covered with a final, fire-proof mould, in this case clay-based, an open view. The core is also filled with fire-proof material. Note the stainless steel core supports. In the next step (not shown), the mould is heated in an oven upside-down and the wax is "lost"